Our Volunteer Civic Engagement Project Is Off to a Great Start

We recently launched our Fall civic engagement program where volunteer community leaders committed to have 15,000 conversations with voters across the San Joaquin Valley.

Through weekly phone banks and canvasses, we’ll engage voters about the issues and concerns that matter most to them, whether it’s immigration, housing, incarceration or poverty.

By building power through increased voting, we can directly impact action in the areas voters care about most.

Our clergy and leaders believe this election is crucially important to reprioritizing our most vulnerable communities and concerns. And we believe these sacred conversations with voters, where we’re engaging our neighbors in a relational conversation about our shared values and asking them to vote, is the vehicle we need to get there.

After nine long months of communities and congregations struggling to defend themselves against the rising tide of deportations that are ripping families apart, SB 54, the California Values Act, has been signed into law. Faith in the Valley, along with PICO California and its 400 member congregations across 24 counties, thank Governor Brown, Senate President Pro Tem Kevin De León, his staff, and...

Borealis Philanthropy recently launched the Communities Transforming Policing Fund to support promising police reform advocacy in local jurisdictions throughout the country, and we're proud to share that Faith in the Valley is one of the Funds' inaugural grant recipients. The CTPF is a collaborative effort of the Open Society Foundations, the Ford Foundation, and the Public Welfare Foundation.

Stockton city leaders are working with community groups to come up with a response to deal with the raids and help people understand their rights. “We are asking people, don’t give false information either, it’s better not to say anything, don’t try and change your name, for sure we don’t want you to try and run, any of those things. We just want to make sure you remain silent until you get an attorney,” said Pastor Trena Turner, executive director of Faith in the Valley.

Faith in the Valley believes that by coming together as a region, we can leverage investment in our communities across the Valley, dramatically impact policies that benefit the most vulnerable members of our region, and build the power we need to make the Central Valley a place where all people can have safe and healthy lives.